Here I will post some short pieces on Sarala Mahabharata. Sarala Das is known as the "aadikavi" (the first poet) of Oriya Literature. He lived and wrote in the 15th Century. Mahabharat is his magnum opus. The episodes in Sarala's Mahabharat are significantly different from those in Vyasa's (Sanskrit) Mahabharat.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

ON SOME DISTURBING DEATHS

This post explores Supriya
Prashant’s idea that the death of Lakshmana Kumara, Duryodhana’ son, and of
Draupadi’s children should be considered together not merely because these
deaths hurt us particularly deeply - killing of those who impress us as innocent
is always profoundly disturbing, but also because these constitute yet
another poignant reminder about how wrong it is to choose war over reconciliation.
In all sadness, here I recall these deaths and add to these the death of Ghatotkacha,
Bhima’s asura son.

King Ghatotkacha had come from
his forest kingdom to fight his father’s enemies. Although his mother had
trained him in the culture of his father, in the eyes of the urban, “cultured”
population, he was a forest dweller - not one of them.King Kiratasena, another forest dweller and
an invincible warrior who had three infallible arrows with which he could win a
war, had offered to fight on behalf of the Kauravas, but Duryodhana had
rejected his offer – in the war of the cultured, the forest dwellers had no
place, he had told him. Disappointed, he then went to the Pandavas but
Yudhisthira would not accept his offer for the same reason. In the case of
Ghatotkacha it was different; after all, he was Bhima’s son. A son could not be
denied his right to fight alongside his father in a war. He fought valiantly
and completely unnerved the Kaurava army. He was unstoppable on the day he
died. No one could defeat him; he defeated all who had faced him. His story
ended as he fell on that very day to a divine weapon of which he was not the
target.

Arjuna was fighting Karna and Krishna
knew that Karna was invoking the divine weapon he had received from Indra. That
weapon would not fail to kill. Krishna asked Ghatotkacha to go behind Arjuna’s
chariot, which he promptly did. He didn’t tell him why he wanted him to be
there. In Sarala Mahabharata Krishna would
hardly ever offer to give a reason for his instructions and actions. As Karna’s
infallible weapon was almost reaching Arjuna, its target, Krishna, his
charioteer, moved the chariot sideways, exposing Ghatotkacha to it. It killed
the brave young warrior, not engaged in battle at that time and returned to
Indra. This was how Draupadi’s curse materialized; she had cursed him to die in
a manner unworthy of a kshatriya.
Krishna just made it happen, unless one refuses to accept, not without good
reason though, that he could merely be an agent of fate in Sarala's narrative.

The Pandavas grieved over Ghatotkacha’s
death, but no one ever asked Krishna why he did what he did. Did they remember
their wife’s curse? Did they realize that Arjuna was safe now and that
Ghatotkacha’s death was a huge step to their victory? Was it this that helped
them to accept it; after all, isn’t the smell of victory much too heady? The poet
tells us nothing.

As for Draupadi’s sons, they were
too young when they were killed. The saddest and the most depressing thing was
that they were killed by mistake; they were not the targets of their killer.
The Pandavas had thought that with the mortal injury of Duryodhana the War had
ended. They had left the battlefield for the night, leaving the children under
the protection of Dhristadyumna, their uncle and the commander-in-chief of the
Pandava army. Responding to the pleas of Ashwasthama, who on hearing that
Duryodhana was dying had come to see him, Duryodhana had made him the
commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army. He had promised the dying king that he
would bring him the severed heads of the Pandavas before the night ended. That
night Ashwasthama needed no army; he was death himself, armed with
BhagawanMahadeva’s sword. He entered
the Pandava camp in the thick darkness of the night, killed Dristadyumna, his
father’s killer, in the most degrading manner, like one would kill a beast, and
then chopped off the heads of Draupadi’s sons thinking that they were the five
Pandavas who were enjoying the unworried, deep sleep that comes to the victor.

He rushed to the dying king, now
in great agony and showed him the severed heads. Duryodhana was happy, his
enemies were dead. In the last phase of the night, it was still dark. As the
dawn arrived and they knew whose heads those were, Duryodhana was inconsolable.
He rebuked Ashwasthama and blamed himself for trusting the one who he had
always regarded as an unworthy warrior and whose pleas to make him the
commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army he had summarily rejected earlier.
Disappointed, Ashwasthama had left the battlefield. Durdasa placed the heads on
Duryodhana’s chest and embracing them, he breathed his last. The poet does not
tell us what thoughts were crossing Ashwasthama’s mind as his friend in the
throes of death, who he had profoundly disappointed, was reproaching him so bitterly.
Those children were not his target; he had committed a grave error, but there
was nothing he could do to undo what he had done.

Although the poet says nothing
explicitly, we can say, set aside Krishna; there was nothing he did not know.
Set aside Vyasa; he wasn’t there. It occurred to no one that the deaths of the
children were long foretold. At the time of Yudhisthira’s rajaswiya jajna. In the presence of all who were there: the
Pandavas, the Kauravas, the Kuru elders, sage Vyasa among other celebrated
sages and Krishna himself.After
Draupadi had cursed Ghatotkacha, his mother, Hidimbaki, cursed Draupadi – her
sons would die very young. Had the Pandavas recalled this, they would have
realized that Ashwasthama was only a mere nimitta
(agent only in appearance) for what had happened. It is another matter that for
hundreds of years, readers have condemned Ashwasthama for killing the sleeping
children of Draupadi.

As for Lakshmana Kumara, whose story we have
just told, he was no one’s target that in that dark night reeking of death.
Whoever killed him did not know who he had killed; Lakshmana Kumara did not
know whether he was killed by someone in the Pandava army or the Kaurava army. All
that the poet told us is that unwillingly and obeying his father, he was trying
to escape from the battlefield to safety. He acted against putra dharma (the ethical code for the son) and against kshatriya dharma but that was only at
the behest of his father, the guru. Now, wasn’t that what Ghatotkacha had done
too? The avatara, the guru of gurus, had asked him to go behind Arjuna’s
chariot and he did, without a murmur, in full faith in Krishna.

As we grieve over the killings of
Ghatotkacha, Lakshmana Kumara and Draupadi’s children, we must not forget that
the domain of Sarala Mahabharata is
not confined to the mortal world and to one life. In Sarala’s retelling, one
who obeyed one’s guru never ended up wasted. They may have suffered in physical
terms, but that was only in this world, in this existence of theirs. There had
been other existences of them, there would also be more. From this perspective,
call it the alaukika (non-worldly)
perspective, the story of Draupadi’s sons did not begin with Hidimbaka’s curse.
It had begun in another aeon. When Ashwasthama killed them, the Vishwadevas,
who had taken birth in the mortal world because of sage Vishwamitra’s curse,
returned to their divine form and to their own loka. Early death was release for them. From the same alaukika perspective one could say that Ghatotkacha
and Lakshmana Kumar attained some higher loka,
inhabited by the virtuous because connectedness with the avatara would always
be blissful. Isn’t this what the wise Bhishma had told Sakuni in Udyoga Parva in Sarala Mahabharata?

3 comments:

You have beautifully explained the deaths of children of Duryodhana and that of Pandavas. After reading this, a few thoughts and questions came to my mind.

1. Could we read Sarala Mahabahrata from a psychological perspective, as a typical product of Odishan society. Or, how should a twenty-first century reader approach and analyse the text? That the war happened or Duryodhana died in this manner were preordained and the story went back to previous ages or we should read it as something which points out our inability to control our own demons: lust, anger, pride etc.

2. Ghatotkacha's death & Draupadi's children's death: Draupadi and Hidambaki cursed each other: as co-wives it could be out of extreme jealousy. Such attitude of nurturing grudges and cursing the chidlren of rivals is easily found in Odishan society. People curse that a family's heir should die-- what I mean to point out is Sarala Mahabharata could be read as a product of a society which takes verbal violence for granted. These two women are not shown to be repenting or taking back their words. So if Draupadi could be so vindictive towards Hidimbaki and Ghatotkacha, it's no wonder she was remorseless about the bloodshed and the loss of lives in the war. .

3. Again, none of the children live-- so from another point of view if Lakhaman kumar had lived, he could have been the crown prince, it is possible Yudhisthir would have given him a kingdom or part of kingdom. If Draupadi's children had survived, Suvadra would have blamed Krishna that you let Abhimanyu killed and let Draupadi's son prevail! In case, Abhimanyu had survived, Drauapdi would have said you protected your own nephew and killed my sons! So Krishna saw to it that all children die.

I always feel the story of Mahabharata is a complex dramma interwoven between many stories replicating to societal issues of contemporary society. It is further reformed and reblended. In the present context of Sarala Mahabharata our traditional culture of Odisha should have definite impression to make it believe by the narrator for our local readers. Some how these things are still persisting in our present society and innocent people are the worst suffer of these type of violence. I thank all for your insights.

Very interesting comments. Thank you very much, Supriya Prashant and Akash Mohapatra. The approach suggested by Supriya is quite persuasive and I think it would lead to an insightful, new interpretation of the narrative, which will be in consonance with the modern spirit. I agree with Mohapatra that the problems of the Mahabharata society are our problems too. This is one reason why it is an eternal narrative, to my mind.